InsaneJournal

Who: Brady and Ruby, then Sam and Jess, then Ava
What: Brady ambushes Ruby by using her beloved fries as bait. Sam, Jess, and even Ava cannot take this abuse of delicious fast food lying down. Brady is killed.
Where: Convenient dark alley outside Ruby's favorite place for fries
When: Tonight, late evening
Warnings: Violence, character death

The shipment of Croatoan virus had gone through town without a hitch, and the higher-ups had been pleased. Not that they’d praised Brady personally of course. When you were working for the side of grand, melodramatic evil (Brady had never really even considered taking the end of the world seriously enough to call his side anything else. It was a family squabble he could make a profit off of, that was all) you knew you were in favor when you were left alone. The displaced were hiding in their little complex. Their weakest were wafting out fear in a reek he could practically smell from his office across town and their strongest were drawing in obsessively, watching the streets around their little rat hole and ignoring what moved through the outskirts of the city. Brady’s more demonically inclined communication devices had been silent for a week. It was time to fade back into the shadows again, to let his “employees” continue what he had started and make the complex implode with its own fear while he sat back and watched in comfort. Lock anyone in a cage long enough and they would turn on their fellow captives. They would rip each other apart like animals, and then what reason would Sam have to resist Lucifer? Who would he be fighting for, once his friends and family were at each other’s throats or already dead? With Ava as his backup, loyal to him as the one who had brought her in rather than to Lucifer as his demons were, he would be protected. It was a good plan, it kept Brady safely on the sidelines, and it was time to fade away and begin.

Still, there was one thing he couldn’t resist. One final prize that was so close, so easily plucked like an overripe peach, and then so easy to crush and mash in a fist. Ruby Winchester was human now. The tutor who had raised him through the ranks on her coat tails. The agent of Azazel who had overshadowed him. The traitor who thought she could undo all of their work. Brady didn’t have loyalties, he didn’t believe in them, and so he didn’t feel personally betrayed by Ruby’s defection, but he couldn’t deny that he would get a great sense of personal satisfaction from being the one to end her, rather than letting someone else do it. Besides, he thought now as he took the last sip of his espresso and then threw it into a trashcan on the corner where he was waiting, Sam still owes me for two years of You Can Stay Sober lectures. There were nearly tears, and I had to keep a straight face. He owes me at least one more grisly family murder.

The restaurant he stood close to was almost empty, he could see bored waitresses wiping down tables through the window and casting glances that alternated between the few customers finishing their dinners and the growing darkness outside. None of them saw Brady, he was good at staying hidden when he wanted to, and when Ruby came (and she would, not only was this her favorite place to get fries, but it was on the route to several places in town) she wouldn’t see him either, now that he was human. He came by when he could get away from his duties to wait here for her. It was an inexact plan, who could have said when she would come after all, but he didn’t mind waiting. He liked the anticipation as much, sometimes even more, than the kill. It had been like that with Jessica, waiting, anticipating, and the moments when she had been smiling at him, taking the cookies out of the oven and saying she was so glad he had stopped by…

But you won’t be glad to see me, will you Ruby? he thought, as a petite brunette, altogether human, turned the corner and walked into his line of vision at last.

“Hello Mrs. Winchester,” he said, as he stepped out of the shadow of the alleyway. “Have time to talk to an old friend?”

He could have just stayed hidden and shot her from the shadows, but this would be so much more fun.